David Goggins

We often choose to focus on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. Use this time to make your weaknesses your strengths.

don’t see people in the military sagging their pants. You need to stop talking like a wanna-be-gangster. None of this shit is gonna cut it! No more taking the easy way out! It’s time to grow the fuck up!

I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it for a second. In those days, by 7 a.m. on a typical weekday I’d have already rocked a two-hour gym workout and was ready for a day’s work.

We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course. We settle as individuals, and we teach our children to settle for less than their best,

I hated getting up in the morning knowing what the day held for me. It was very lonely, but I knew that on the Badwater course I’d reach a point where the pain would become unbearable and feel insurmountable.

. Maybe it would be at mile fifty or sixty, maybe later, but there would be a time when I’d want to quit, and I had to be able to slay the one-second decisions in order to stay in the game and access my untapped 60 percent.

Because nobody quits an ultra race or Hell Week in a split second. People make the decision to quit hours before they ring that bell, so I needed to be present enough to recognize when my body and mind were starting to fail in order to short circuit the impulse to look for a way out long before I tumbled into that fatal funnel.

you should catalog your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Don’t ignore them. Be prepared for them, because in any endurance event, in any high-stress environment, your weaknesses will surface like bad karma, build in volume, and overwhelm you. Unless you get ahead of them first

First, a quick reminder of how this process works. In 1999, when I weighed 297 pounds, my first run was a quarter mile. Fast forward to 2007, I ran 205 miles in thirty-nine hours, nonstop. I didn’t get there overnight, and I don’t expect you to either. Your job is to push past your normal stopping point.

There is so much pain and suffering involved in physical challenges that it’s the best training to take command of your inner dialogue, and the newfound mental strength and confidence you gain by continuing to push yourself physically will carry over to other aspects in your life. You will realize that if you were underperforming in your physical challenges, there is a good chance you are underperforming at school and work too.